How "intelligent" is this elite?

The two great lines cited define the problem we have with our fearless leaders in Washington: "Since when and by what right does intelligence trump human equality? Moreover, if the politicians are so smart, why have they made life worse?"

The 500 or so legislators and senior executive officers in Washington control the laws, taxation, and regulation of the land. The extraordinary overlapping and expensive administrative inefficiencies in our giovernment are their doing. They could re-write and simplify and downsize every agency if they wanted to. They didn't have to encourage FANNIE MAE to guarantee (on taxpayers backs) sub-prime loans that created the bubble and collapse of the last two years. The buck stops with them! So why are they so inept?

A couple reasons: First there is the corruption that follows campaign finance realities. If a candidate wants to line his campaign coffers he might be tempted to "adjust" the regulations that keep hedge fund traders from ripping off the finacial markets. He might want to keep all the subsidies to favored groups that contribute to him--think farmers, unions, ACORN, ACLU, NRA, etc. This could be largely corrected by allowing only contributions from individual registered voters. But they don't want to solicit small gifts from the people when they get a hundred million from the unions or farm organizations.

Secondly, these elite people have adopted an intellectual thinking process that adores abstractions and theoretical approaches. That is the only way they can justify economic pump priming concepts, stimulus spending, and grandiose "wars" on poverty, terrorism, bullying, etc. Such abstractions avoid the common sense real solutions to problems, allowing the leaders to confuse and obfuscate their constituents. Many people have actually been convinced that spending a trillion dollars of borrowed money will help the economy--even if most of the added discretionary money is spent importing Chinese goods!

Thus, the two problems are based on: first, the intellectual pride and self-aggrandizement of these people, and secondly on the way they think--which is flawed. They are based on current over-valuation of IQ over common sense and integrity.

But IQs are a failed measurement. It turns out that real useful "intelligence" is not a matter of having high IQ's. We are promoting and rewarding in our schools and colleges and onto the top jobs, a group of kids who think abstractly but not wisely, theoretically but with no common sense. They have convinced too many Americans that "experts" with academic credentials actually know more than the common people.

My study of this elite and the system that has propelled them into power indicates they are a great danger to the country. It is a "conspiracy of the egg-heads" that has replaced a pragmatic and honest leadership with a group that thinks abstractly and unrealistically. (see www.thewastedgenius.com) As I understand the latest neurological discoveries of how our brains function, total intelligence is made up of many parts--maybe 20% IQ, 20% EQ and people skills, 20% impulse control and persistence, 20% rational-decision-making ability, and 20% a realism grounded in practical common sense. It is the Country People that have most of the non-IQ ability--the competencies that made America great over the past four centuries. The new abstract thinking elite, our new ruling class, have replaced the practical Americans, and our leadership has suffered. Indeed, if not corrected, this new elite will bring on the collapse of America's unique greatness.

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